Oligophagy refers to the eating of only a few specific foods, and to monophagy when restricted to a single food source.[1] The term is usually associated with insect dietary behaviour.[2] Organisms may exhibit narrow or specific oligophagy where the diet is restricted to a very few foods or broad oligophagy where the organism feeds on a wide variety of specific foods but none other.[3]
Polyphagy, on the contrary, refers to eating a broad spectrum of foods. In the insect world it refers usually to insects that feed on plants belonging to different families.
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^Oligophagy on Dictionary.com. Accessed on 9 January 2010.
Oligophagy refers to the eating of only a few specific foods, and to monophagy when restricted to a single food source. The term is usually associated...
except for one specific type (see generalist and specialist species). Oligophagy is a term for intermediate degrees of selectivity, referring to animals...
on a broad range of plants (polyphagous), but there are instances of oligophagy. In general, the larvae feed externally on roots in the soil and adults...
36.1: 26-73 The Coleopterists Society. Hengeveld, R. 1980. “Polyphagy, Oligophagy, and Food Specialization in Ground Beetles” Netherlands Journal of Zoology...
species of Xyela the association with each several species of pines (oligophagy) has been reported in literature, but supposedly such records are often...
dark brown longitudinal stripes. This species feeds almost exclusively (oligophagy) on leaves and flowers of the family Asteraceae, tribe Heliantheae, e...
switching has been shown many times: in insect–plant relationships where oligophagy in locusts manifests itself on distantly related plants, plant–disperser...
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